Kampfgruppe Stickler #5 - Rats in a trap.

A few miles behind Russian lines over looking one of the main highways to the front, Stickler sheltered from the biting wind waiting for his prey to arrive. The Russians were massing and Battalion Headquarters  had sent him out on a mission to disrupt their supply routes.

As usual troops and equipment are hard to come by, so Stickler only had Kapp and Honig's sections to rely upon, although he did manage to draft in a mortar team in support. He positioned the 251's on the rise looking down the road whilst his infantry lined the tree line.

A after a tense few hours a Soviet column came into sight, the column comprised of an armoured car two sections of infantry and a medium truck. 

Time to give Ivan a bloody nose.
The column crawled it's way into the fire zone like rats in a trap.

Stickler gave the order.... Fire.... Send them to Hell....

Rifle and machine gun rounds raked the column, Kapp's men fired a Pz Faust round catching the armoured dead centre. It burst into flames killing all of the crew, meanwhile the first Russian section gived for cover losing several of their men in the kill zone.  

Honig's men let rip destroying the lorry and a number of it's occupants not bad for a bunch of old men with failing vision.

What does the military manual tell you if caught in an ambush? - Fire and Move...

Kaptain Solmenski watched as the column disintegrated before his eyes, half his men were dead or dying, he had to get out off the road. Under cover of the burning vehicles he charged towards the tree line and Honig's section.

Old men and school boys were no match for the communists and their battle hardened troops. After a vicious firefight Solmenski over ran the defenders, Honig was cut down as the Russians burst through his is position.

Stickler's halftracks swept from the slope clearing the remaining Russians from the road.

Solmenski led his the Russian survivors through the woods. He would have his revenge.

Meanwhile Stickler smiled as his men picked through the wreckage of the column. Today had been a good day.

NEXT WEEK..... Gun fire at dawn.

Well that was short lived, it took longer to set up then play out, good job I did not invite friends round to play.

For once fate fell kindly for Stickler with a number of poor Russian rolls which resulted in a smaller column than anticipated.  Early successes from the Germans in the woods removed half the Russian dice before they could reorganise and return fire.

The loss of Honig was unfortunate but at least he went down fighting.... proper comic book stuff.